Entertainment

Pluck RSS Reader, RIP

Pluck's RSS reader, which has been struggling for a long while, shut down today. Users have until January 5th 2007 to export their RSS subscriptions to another reader, says a message posted to the site. This was predictable: the RSS reader market is crowded, a few companies have already gone the way of the dodo, and others have been acquired with a plan to integrate them into existing services. As a standalone service, these products are in trouble - a few popular readers rule and the market is consolidating. They were easy to build, but customer acquisition was never easy. Look for more impoverished RSS readers to throw in the towel soon.

Pluck now want to focus on their other products. MyNews, for instance, puts content on publisher sites, while the much-discussed Blogburst product syndicates blog content on sites like the Washington Post and the Houston Chronicle, with revenue sharing being promised (although I haven't seen this materialize). They provide social media solutions for publishers, too, under the SiteLife brand. They also own Shadows.com, an underused social bookmarking site (in fact, social bookmarking sites will no doubt be the next category of startups to suffer mass extinction). Personally, I'm just waiting for a brave blogger to cover this story with the obvious - and totally offensive - headline.

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